This morning, the Brazos Fellows discussed the Rule of St. Benedict with Fr. Lee Nelson, who invited us to consider how this ancient rule, and the monastic spirituality that it inspired which resonates down to today, teaches us to embrace paradox.

Over the last three weeks, the Brazos Fellows have been studying Christology–how Christians have understood the person, nature, and work of Christ. It’s a topic that, over the course of several hundred years in early Christianity, occupied the church’s greatest thinkers, sparked some of the most intense and heated controversies, and led to the foundational creeds of our faith.

To study Christology isn’t easy work! In addition to reading overviews of this doctrinal development, the fellows have been poring over influential texts from the fourth and fifth centuries: Athanasius’ On the Incarnation, Cyril of Alexandria’ On the Unity of Christ, and Gregory of Nazianzus’ On God and Christ. Thankfully, we’ve done this work with the help of a great team of instructors, including graduate students Cody Strecker, Nicholas Krause, and Alex Fogleman, as well as Baylor professor Junius Johnson.